Jobcentre staff under attack

JobCentre staff have been assaulted

TOUGHER benefit sanctions has led to a huge rise in abuse towards Jobcentre staff in our area.

That’s the view of a city academic and the trade union representing workers after figures obtained by The News revealed increases of abuse towards staff at local centres.

A Freedom of Information request showed the number of reports for abuse between April 2012 and March 2013 at job centres in Portsmouth, Cosham, Gosport, Havant and Fareham was 258 – compared with 150 the previous year and 117 in 2010/11.

In the Portsmouth Jobcentre alone, figures for the Arundel Street site jumped from 76 in 2011/12 to 167 the following year.

While one of those led to ‘more than cuts and bruises’ for a member of staff, the total includes threats of physical abuse.

Dan Finn, professor of social inclusion at the University of Portsmouth, said stricter government sanctions on benefits in the past year could be behind the rise in abuse, with more people left frustrated at being denied help.

He said: ‘When people are dealing with very difficult financial circumstances, there is frustration – maybe reasonably or unreasonably – that can boil over to inappropriate behaviour.

‘From the past, we know that when the benefit system cracks down on people in terms of sanctions, people who are in really difficult situations can’t access money. This can lead to an increase violence experienced by staff. It is a real risk to members of staff in the job centre.’

A new regime of sanctions was brought in by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) in October 2012.

It means if a person claiming benefits – mainly Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance – does not comply with the terms set by the Jobcentre, their benefits can be cut off for up to three years, depending on the circumstances.

Between the new, tighter rules being introduced and November last year, 1,650 sanctions were applied to people at the job centre in Portsmouth.

The Public and Commercial Services Union has seen a rise in the number of Jobcentre staff complaining of abuse rise in the past 18 months.

A spokesman for the union called on the government to protect its members.

He said: ‘These figures are consistent with what we are seeing across the country from official figures and anecdotally when our members have told us they notice a rise in verbal and physical abuse.

‘It coincides with the strict regime that the government is imposing on benefit claimants. It is absolutely shameful for the government to turn the screw on vulnerable people who depend on benefits.

‘At the same time they are putting increasing pressure on staff to enforce the regime. It is entirely against their will.

‘No-one joined the service to come in to the level of confrontation that they are.’

Former employment minister Mark Hoban has said he does not believe the rise in reported abuse towards Jobcentre staff is linked to the changes in benefits.

The Conservative MP for Fareham said: ‘I think there is no excuse for attacks on Jobcentre staff. We take the welfare of staff seriously.

‘That is why we have G4S personnel in our job centres to help.

‘I think the other thing I would say is quite often these changes don’t really affect the people in the job centres.

‘I would question the link between benefit changes and attacks on job centre staff.’

A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman said: ‘DWP take all incidents seriously and we actively encourage our staff to report these.

‘We have robust measures in place in all our job centres to minimise the risk of incidents to staff and customers.’

She added all Jobcentre staff, including Portsmouth, must undertake relevant healthy and safety training before working with the public.

Safety precautions are in place including the deployment of security guards and panic alarms.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Portsmouth News provides news, events and sport features from the Portsmouth area. For the best up to date information relating to Portsmouth and the surrounding areas visit us at Portsmouth News regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Portsmouth News requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.